I've been watching McCain's campaign looking for some signs of hope, but Ben Stein's characterization of it as "heart-breakingly bad" so many weeks ago is more true than ever.

He throws away two debates by behaving like a toddler. He can't pick a consistent message for more than a couple days, flip flopping back and forth faster than his own staff can keep track. His inconstant and bizarre behavior in a crisis makes me more convinced than ever that he's not mentally fit to hold the office. Worse yet, they've bungled Sarah Palin's debut on the national stage.

Sorry, John. I really did want to give you a chance. But my vote isn't guaranteed to anyone just based on his party. It must be earned, and you haven't even come close.

I'll support the down-ticket conservatives. But I'm leaving the top slot blank. Hey, GOP primary voters - next time, nominate a conservative.

"The vodka is good, but the steak is lousy."

"I never should have switched from scotch to martinis."-- the last words of Humphrey Bogart

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."-- Thomas Jefferson

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies; The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."-- C.S. Lewis, In Freedom

"The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog is."-- G. K. Chesterton